Alabama

Nullification laws (Your view)

In his Opinion column of May 5th on the recent Alabama
Senate passage of legislation "nullifying" any federal gun control
law, Edward Bowser makes the sweeping statement that all
nullification efforts, which are legislative efforts at the state level to thwart
or totally prevent the implementation of a specified federal law in that
particular state, are motivated by "little more than arrogant
intolerance," and that they are "useless."

Given the universal nature of his indictment, shall we
assume that Mr. Bowser also considers "arrogant intolerance" to have
been the motivating factor behind the pre-Civil War "personal
liberty laws" that a large number of northern states
passed to impede and to prevent the forced return of slaves who
had escaped from their owners into free states, in direct obstruction of
the federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1850?

While such personal liberty laws were probably
unconstitutional when they were passed, they nevertheless strengthened the
abolitionist sentiment that (combined with the Civil War) resulted in the
passage of the 13th Amendment (abolition of slavery) just 15 years after the
Fugitive Slave Law that they sought to nullify. Consequently, these
nullification laws were hardly "useless" in accomplishing their
goal, nor to the fugitive slaves who gained their freedom because of them.

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